Lewis Hamilton<\/a> for McLaren.<\/p>\nThe Brazilian was leading the race when Renault driver Nelson Piquet Jr crashed deliberately to trigger a Safety Car which helped teammate Fernando Alonso win the race.<\/p>\n
Massa pitted during the Safety Car but Ferrari botched the stop, resulting in their lead driver finishing outside of the points. He went on to lose the world championship to Hamilton by a single point at the final round in Brazil.<\/p>\n
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The conspiracy only emerged in 2009 but Massa has accused Ecclestone and the FIA of concealing the race-fixing to protect F1\u2019s image.<\/p>\n
The defendants have argued that the claim had been brought too late and asked the court in London to throw out the case.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Mr Justice Jay said in a written judgement that the case could go ahead.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an extraordinary victory \u2013 an important day for me, for justice, and for everyone passionate about Formula 1,\u201d Massa said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Court acknowledged the strength of our case and did not allow the defendants to smother the truth about 2008. The deliberate crash cost me a world title, and the authorities at the time chose to cover up the facts instead of defending the integrity of the sport.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThey did everything they could to stop the lawsuit, but our fight is for justice, and today we took a decisive step. The truth will prevail at trial. We will investigate everything thoroughly. Every document, every communication, every piece of evidence revealing the conspiracy among the defendants will be presented.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am more determined and confident than ever! When the whole truth comes to light, justice will be served \u2013 for me, for Brazilians, for the tifosi, for all motorsport fans who deserve an honest sport, and for the very future of F1.\u201d<\/p>\n
What happens if Massa succeeds?<\/p>\n
The judge said that Massa had \u201cno real prospect of establishing that the FIA\u2019s duties were owed to him\u201d, but that \u201che does have a real prospect of proving at trial all the components of his unlawful means conspiracy\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mr Justice Jay added: \u201cThe same analysis applies to the inducement claim.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Massa could succeed in being awarded damages, the results of the 2008 world championship cannot be overturned.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe present claim cannot, of course, rewrite the outcome of the 2008 drivers\u2019 world championship, but if declaratory relief along the lines sought were granted that is how Mr Massa would present his victory to the world and it is also how it would be perceived by the public,\u201d Mr Justice Jay said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe second declaration is in the terms that were it not for the FIA\u2019s breaches of duty, Mr Massa would have won the championship: in other words, that he should have won the championship. The FIA, as an international sporting body outside the reach of this court, could and would simply ignore any such declaration.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat underscores its lack of practical utility, but the declaration comes too close in my view to impinging on the right of the FIA to govern its own affairs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Subscribe to our F1 Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Felipe Massa\u2019s lawsuit claim over the 2008 F1 world championship can proceed to trial, a high court judge…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297440,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,848,826,813,816,823,85],"class_list":["post-297439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-felipe-massa","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}